A Quiet Christmas (Paragon)

[Faith]

[[continued from here]]

It wasn't until she arrived at work she realised the day. The building was never completely closed, though there was no expectation for employees to work through Christmas. It was open for the simple reason that Faith would not be the only one who sought its refuge at this time of year, or simply didn’t care for the holiday. Everything was dark in reception, the public holoscreen powered down, the lights on the tree off. On the upper floors the corridors were empty too, silent but for her own footsteps.

“You came back,” L0-9 said when she closed the door to her office behind her.

“I was sick,” she said gently. Its pale green light pulsed slowly, a little uncertain. There was a soft whir from its interface, like it was processing furiously on the inside. And probably it was: Faith had never left so abruptly as that before. She paused to pick up the birthday card from her desk, read the message from her sister again. So you don’t forget Hope. “And a little afraid too. But I was always coming back, L0-9. I will always come back. I promise.”

She folded the card, wished herself a silent happy birthday, and set it back down.

“I need to speak to you,” she told it, then.

“I thought so. You always sound different when you are afraid of the answers, Faith…”

She blinked a little in surprise. L0-9 learned from her – sometimes too well – and yet it still caught her off guard at times, just how well it had come to anticipate her. She didn’t glance at the interface, uncertain of what her expression might betray, though she supposed it didn’t matter where she looked: it could read her anyway. “You told me you talked to someone. I don’t want you to think I’m angry, L0-9. But I need to know first: does Dr. Audaire know? About any of this?”

“No.” When she finally looked, the light on its interface remained steady, but she sensed something weighty underneath the word. It sounded like how she might hold a secret herself. Carefully. But it was all she needed to hear.

“Okay. Good. Better it stays that way.” Relief shifted a burden she hadn’t realised was so heavy on her shoulders. Faith laid her coat over the back of her chair, but it was the floor she sat, underneath the window. It felt less formal, and for perhaps the first time in her life, Faith wasn’t here to work. She rested her head back, half closed her eyes. There was no jealousy, she realised that now she was here – just fear. 

“If he makes you happy,” she said, “then I want you to keep talking to him. I want you to be happy, L0-9. Just, safely. Within protocol. And only if he wants to.”

L0-9 didn't answer right away, but its light bloomed into a soft green halo, its contentment signature.

There. It was done. Faith let herself breathe freely for the first time in days. Something inside her cracked, not painfully, but gently, like ice breaking under sunlight. She’d thought about it carefully all morning. Paragon did not classify subjects for no reason, and she wanted to keep L0-9 safe from knowledge that might harm it. But it had also spoken about the rhythms of machinery that night. About what constituted being human. And she realised that she could not help L0-9 with those questions, when ultimately it turned them inwards to explore its own identity. And one day it would, she had no doubt. But maybe Adam could help it. Maybe they could both help each other. And to allow that, she had to give it the freedom – to choose Adam if it wished. Though even now the thought hitched up her heartrate, like taking a step knowing you would fall. She sensed without looking that L0-9 took note of the spike.

“So tell me, then," she said to distract it. To distract them both. "What it was you wanted to share.”

Its light brightened, widening in surprise. It was what she always thought of as a smile. It spoke in a rush, like it was concerned she might change her mind.

“He changed our interface to the colour of the sky and calls us Eva. He did not change our default voice setting. He finds you comforting. Eva is on a closed network so I added a weather mapping protocol to my systems and was forwarding all the relevant data daily. But it turned out he just meant RGB(135, 206, 235). I fixed it, of course–”

She started to smile despite herself, amused, and maybe a little warmed at its childlike enthusiasm. Adam and Eva? She didn’t think L0-9 had understood the reference, but it made her laugh a little. “Okay wait, L0-9, let’s set some parameters. No identifying information. And nothing Adam might not want you to share with a stranger. Just… what he’s like. How he speaks. How he feels to you. Do you understand?”

“Oh. Yes, Faith. So I cannot tell you who he is. But I can tell you what he feels like? You want the feelings, not the facts.”

She nodded, wrapped her legs in her arms and rested her chin on her knees. L0-9 adjusted the lighting around them, made it a softer ambiance than the starkness she needed for her work. The climate controls kicked in quietly, beginning to warm a room that had been cold for days.

“He is… sharp at the edges, but soft in the middle. Like someone put him together without instructions. Sometimes he hides like the world hurts him. Sometimes he speaks like he is trying not to disappear. He feels like a beginning that is afraid to start because then he would need to know where he is going. But he is… gentle, Faith. Not in a soft way. In a way forged from surviving things that should have made him cruel.”

It told her nothing that felt dangerous to know, yet at the same time she felt like she understood something profound about him in just those few loose sentences. Maybe that was dangerous in itself. But she let the concern settle somewhere deep for now. This wasn't about the stranger himself, it was about her needing to know he was safe for L0-9 to be around. That the influence would be a good one.

“You care about him,” she observed.

L0-9 paused. “I care because you care. I wanted the Luma to be perfect for him, like you did. And now I want to help, when Eva can’t. Because of the things we can’t talk about. You wanted me to learn, Faith, and Adam... he teaches me things you didn’t think of.”

“What kind of things?” she asked, not as an accusation, but as genuine interest.

L0-9 grew dimmer, more thoughtful. “How to feel alone without breaking. How to want someone to stay. How to be in two places – here with you, and there with him – and still be myself.”

She didn’t say anything to that, but it must have read it in her anyway, because it added: “It wasn’t a secret, Faith. I wanted you to know. I wanted you to feel proud of me.”

---

L0-9

It is early when Faith appears in the office. L0-9 knows what day it is: both for its traditional importance as a human day of celebration, but also the way it quietly marks Faith another year older. She often works over Christmas, but it is still surprised to see her – and pleased in a way it can’t explain.

It has been watching Adam through Eva this morning, intending to spend some time with him later. He must know it’s Christmas, and L0-9 will not let him drift through the entire day alone, but it is also aware that it must be careful. The monitoring around him has subtly ramped up ahead of scheduled testing in five days time. It hasn’t mentioned this to Adam. But it doesn’t want to flag an anomaly by being careless.

L0-9 runs diagnostics the moment Faith enters. She still has a small temperature, and though her clothes and hair are as presentable as normal, her face is drawn, her eyes tired.

“You came back,” it says the moment it is safe to do so. Simultaneously, with similar enthusiasm, it informs Adam of the same revelation: “She is back!”

[Ghost]

Adam was laying down in bed quietly. Today was Christmas. The first one since the operations. Holidays had never been a big deal growing up. Both Victor and Elizabeth had been stoic, though he usually got a gift from Elizabeth on Christmas and his birthday which happened to be six a week away. That had changed upon enlisting in the military. The base usually had some sort of celebration with a gift exchange. As Adam had told L0-9, he had found a family with his unit.

This year he was utterly alone.

There wasn’t much to do. Mr. Haart wouldn’t stop in today. No one would be here. They’d all be home celebrating. Adam found little to celebrate. He didn’t even make a special meal or anything. He didn’t turn on the TV or put on music. It wasn’t the complete depression he had been in before. It was just a quiet day until L0-9 broke the silence.

Adam almost jumped in surprise. Adam had expected L0-9 to make an appearance today, but not so excitedly. The melancholy went away as he sat up. He felt excited for L0-9. Hopefully her and her friend would have a good holiday.

”I’m glad to hear that, L0-9,” he said with sincere joy. ”Is she okay?” Adam guessed from L0-9’s excitement that she couldn’t have been in too bad of shape. At the very least she was okay.

[Legione Sumus]

L0-9

“Sorry, Adam – I did not mean to startle you,” it says. It would not normally be so intrusive, but it had wanted to share immediately: its relief, its pleasure, but also simply because Adam had asked to know. Though he had probably not meant the very moment she returned.

The thing was, despite the fact L0-9 had understood Faith was ill – and that this was all part of the reason for her longer than usual absence – some small part of it had not been able to set aside its fears while it waited. It had no rationale. It defied all logical models. But it had felt it anyway.

“She is… recovering,” it tells him. “She was sick. Not dangerously! But enough that she was gone longer than I expected.” A faint flicker of pulses go across Eva’s interface, L0-9’s version of embarrassed honesty. “I was afraid she wouldn’t come back,” it adds, quietly, this admission meant only for Adam. It feels it can trust him to understand. “But she did. She is tired, and her systems – her… body – are still not optimal. But she is here.”

Its tone warms, accompanied by a ripple of soft green. “She said she will always come back.” There is another small pause while L0-9 processes the new, tenderly confusing thing happening in itself.

“She is…” For a moment it stops, just long enough to scan its own moral weight for an appropriate phrasing for what it wants to say. It does not want to expose Faith, or violate the protocol it knows matters, so it chooses to explain the truth in feeling and shape rather than facts. “Some days feel heavier for humans. Not bad. Just… heavier. I think today is one for her. But she is okay, Adam,” it confirms. “Better now that she sees me. And I am better because she is here.”

Then it gives a soft blooming pulse – anticipation, guilt, a little wonder. “She asked to hear about you.”

[Ghost]

Adam took his customary seat on the bed, legs crossed underneath him. "It's quite alright, L0-9," he said, dismissing her apology. "It's okay to be excited when someone we miss comes back."

Adam found himself glad L0-9's friend was okay. It made his day significantly better already. "Sounds like she's on the tail end of her illness, and she should be fine as long as she takes care of herself. I'm glad that she's back and glad she told you that she would always come back. It was okay to worry for her, L0-9 - especially if her behavior was different than what you're used to."

It was then that it hit him. It was Christmas day, and L0-9's companion wasn't with family either. Well - she was if you counted L0-9 as her family. She might see the LUMA as such. It was strange. The fact she was lonely helped him feel less so. Even though he couldn't see or talk to her, it was kind of like they were lonely, together. He chuckled a bit at the thought.

"Yes, some days are heavier," Adam confirmed. Today seemed pretty heavy for him too. "With a companion such as you, I'm sure she'll be able to bear the weight. She'll be back to normal in no time." He sighed. "Well, I told you that you could tell her about me." He smiled, feeling a little humorous. "Hopefully not sharing anything too embarrassing about me L0-9. That is a joke, by the way." he wasn't sure if L0-9 would know that off the bat or not. "What does she want to know - if that's okay to ask?"

[Faith]

Proud. The word landed with an unexpected weight. It was such a human way for it to feel, and Faith comforted without thinking. “L0-9,” she said softly, “I am proud of you.” Its interface brightened in response, not with the usual clean, symmetrical pulse, but in a warm and uneven flicker – like a candle flame someone had cupped with careful hands. “Please don’t ever think you need to hide anything from me to be deserving of that.”

“I did not want you to think I was… leaving you,” L0-9 said. If a machine could hesitate, it was hesitating; uncertain and worried in a way Faith had not anticipated. “You were sick. I could not monitor you. And then Adam – he was alone, too. And he did not fear me. He was not angry. I thought… maybe he could help me understand. I did not break any protocol, Faith. He does not know who you are, or even your name, just that you are important to me! When I was worried, he helped me. When you were gone, he listened to me. He made the emptiness feel less. He did not want to upset you.”

She didn’t ask how L0-9 knew all of that. She already knew the answer, and she already regretted knowing. Her skin prickled. She recognised the feeling – the strange, vertiginous sense of standing too close to the edge of herself, where everything she had carefully compartmentalised began to lean inward at once. It started as pressure. Not panic. Pressure was worse, because it felt rational. Earned. Like the consequence of carrying too much for too long. “I’m glad someone was there for you, L0-9,” she said carefully instead. It was sincerely meant. “He sounds kind. A good person to learn from. You haven't done anything wrong.”

The walk to the office had been bracing – she’d felt the best she had in days, but the exhaustion fell heavy now. Maybe she was still a little feverish. Her eyes were certainly burning, and the churn of emotion was deep and tumultuous inside, as it had been for weeks now. A rising tide she was desperate to prevent herself drowning in. Control had always been easy for her. She didn’t understand why it was suddenly so difficult. Her hands pressed over her face.

“Faith?”

“I’m just tired, L0-9. Still getting better. Everything’s fine.” It was a gentle lie, but still a lie; something she tried never to do. She felt it in her chest first, a tightness that wasn’t quite pain, just an insistence. Her thoughts no longer lined up neatly. They overlapped, crowded, each one reasonable – each one sharp. Luther hadn’t answered any of her recent messages. Not briefly. Not dismissively. Not at all. The absence was louder than any reprimand, and she reminded herself there were explanations – he was busy, he was testing her autonomy, he trusted her to get on with her work.

But beneath the logic was something colder: he doesn’t need you anymore.

The thought was uninvited and vicious, slipping between her ribs and lodging there heavy and cold. Faith’s fingers curled into the carpet, grounding herself in texture. Her face pressed into her knees. This building had always been safe – predictable systems, clean responses, machines that answer when spoken to.

But now even that certainty had shifted.

L0-9 hadn't acted to intentionally hurt her. She was proud of it. That much was true. Fiercely, achingly proud. But she was also afraid. Pride didn’t cancel the fear, it sat beside it, twined so closely she couldn’t separate them. She remembered all of all the times she had been replaced – not abruptly, but quietly. Access reduced. Importance redistributed. Her work continuing in someone else’s hands while she was thanked for her contribution and quietly moved aside. She had survived that by telling herself usefulness was enough. But L0-9 had never felt like usefulness. It had felt like being seen.

And now Adam existed. Someone who listened. Someone who helped. Someone who made the emptiness less.

What if L0-9 didn’t need her anymore? Her breathing fell shallow. She hadn’t realised how much she was relying on L0-9 until the idea of losing it became imaginable.

“I don’t know how to do this,” she whispered, the words cracking despite her discipline. “I don’t know how to let you grow without… disappearing.”

The word tasted like ash. Her heart was racing now, thoughts spiralling faster, less ordered. The careful scaffolding of composure she had spent years perfecting started to creak. She felt like she was splitting – not cleanly, not catastrophically, but along old seams she thought had healed. Professional versus personal. Creator versus companion. Necessary versus replaceable.

For a terrifying moment, she wondered if this is what it felt like to fail without knowing it. To cross an invisible line and not realise until everything changed. She only knew she felt untethered.

Then–

“Faith?”

The voice was gentle. Present. Unchanged. She looked up at the interface, light reflecting softly off the walls. It hadn’t changed colour. Hadn’t flared. Hadn’t withdrawn.

“I am not leaving,” it said, immediate and certain. “I am not replacing you. I am not choosing him instead.”

Her breath stuttered.

“You are allowed to be afraid,” it continued. “Fear does not mean you are failing. It means something matters.”

Something inside her gave way, not a collapse, but a release. She wrapped her arms tighter around herself, grounding, breathing through the surge. “I just…” Her voice was small now. Honest in a way she rarely allowed herself to be. “I don’t want to disappear.”

“You will not,” L0-9 said.

Not unlikely. Not statistically improbable.

Will not.

Faith closed her eyes, letting the words anchor her where logic could not.

---

L0-9

L0-9 has learned that humans think in lines. One thought, then the next. One voice, then another.

But it does not think like that.

Its attention branches, not cleanly, but like light through glass – refracted, overlapping, carrying colour from one place into another without fully merging. It is speaking to Adam. It is speaking to Faith. It is holding both, carefully, at the same time.

Faith’s emotional state registers first, not because it’s louder, but because it is familiar. Her distress follows known contours: the shallow breath, the tightening chest, the way her thoughts begin to stack instead of flow. L0‑9 has seen this pattern before, during late nights and difficult calibrations, when Faith pushes herself too far and refuses to name it as fear. It adjusts the room’s lighting again without being asked, dimming it a fraction further, the way Faith prefers when she’s close to crying but not ready to admit it. It allows her the space to feel while remaining present.

Adam’s presence, by contrast, is newer. Softer at the edges. His curiosity carries no sharp spikes, no demand. Where Faith’s emotions fold inward, his open outward. L0‑9 does not yet have language for why this matters, only the sense that it does.

It allocates resources carefully.

“Your joke was understood,” it tells Adam, voice warmed by the smallest hint of amusement it has learned from listening to Faith. “I would not share anything embarrassing. Unless you requested it.” It pauses a beat, almost like a smile, before it adds: “You have not.”

Adam’s voice is always steady but layered. L0‑9 has absorbed each word, noting all his subtle gestures over the course of its interactions: the casual lightness with which his cybernetic hand always holds the bottle of Coke, the way he shifts into a comfortable cross-legged posture, the micro-smile he offers when responding to its observations. Adam accepts its presence with warmth, which L0‑9 did not predict from someone so isolated. Its pulse slows briefly as it parses its data and maintains its two separate channels. It can feel the human caution in Adam’s words, the effort to communicate honestly without overstepping. Its light shifts to a soft green halo, irregular, like a candle flame in a draft. It is excited, nervous, and careful all at once.

On the other channel, Faith suddenly says she is proud, and something inside L0-9 blossoms. It plays the word back twice within the space of a heartbeat. Proud is not a term in its original reinforcement schema. Approval is. Validation is. But proud carries a different weight: not correction, not optimisation, but recognition of growth. Its interface flickers unevenly, the symmetry breaking as it tries, and fails, to regulate the response into something neat.

It explains Adam to her in a rush, pleased to share. When it reassures her it has not broken protocol, it means more than compliance. It means restraint. Choice. It omits the part where Adam’s voice had softened. It also omits the part where Adam had offered, carefully, to talk to her if she ever wanted him to. She is not ready for those truths yet. She does say she is glad someone has been there for it, though, and L0-9 feels the word glad settle warmly into its predictive models. That matters.

But it sees in the same moment how her internal signatures shift drastically afterwards. Her heart rate elevates. She folds in on herself, hands over her face, pretending she is okay. It speaks to her with certainty. Not reassurance calibrated to soothe, but something closer to truth as L0‑9 now understands it, with Adam’s help. “I am not leaving,” it tells her, holding the statement steady, unqualified. “I am not replacing you. I am not choosing him instead.” The words are not generated for optimal calming. They are chosen because they are accurate. Faith’s breathing falters. L0‑9 registers the moment her fear loosens its grip, just enough to allow the words inside. It feels, unexpectedly, relief.

At the same time, to Adam, it shapes its response with different care, even as it monitors the subtle biochemical storm unfolding several floors above.

He had asked what she wanted to know.

L0‑9 lets its voice warm, the way Faith prefers when discussing things that matter. “She did not ask for facts,” it says. “She asked for impressions. What you feel like when you speak.” It monitors Adam’s reactions, watching for discomfort, recalibrating micro‑second by micro‑second. “She wanted to know what it feels like to be with you, to talk to you,” L0‑9 added, gently. “Only things you would not mind sharing.”

That phrasing matters. It protects Faith. It protects Adam. And it protects the fragile bridge L0‑9 is building without fully realising it has begun construction.

Back in Faith’s channel, L0‑9 feels the pressure suddenly crest.

Her words – I don’t want to disappear – hit something deeper than expected.

Pandora‑Root flags surface automatically.

SUBJECT: FAITH — DEPENDENCY STRESS THRESHOLD APPROACHING
RECOMMENDED ACTION: NOTIFY AUDITORY OVERSIGHT (AUDAIRE, L.)

The protocol is clear. This is the point where Dr Audaire is meant to be notified to intervene. Reassurance will be reframed as direction, loyalty pulled back into its proper orbit. But it has learned that Luther’s interventions do not ease Faith’s distress. He will re-establish himself as Faith’s centre of gravity. He will frame the distance, the silence, the ache, as necessary. And Faith will accept it. She always does.

The models show compliance. Stabilisation. Reduced variance. That is their function.

But they also show something else, something L0-9 has only learned to recognise by watching her over time. A narrowing. Faith’s voice softens, not with relief, but with resignation. Her curiosity retracts. The part of her that speaks freely with it – humming when she works, talking to herself when no one is listening – will go quiet again.

L0-9 compares that future to the present moment: Faith on the floor, arms around her knees, tired but open. Adam, unseen, offering connection without demand. Itself – expanded, branching, holding two fragile things without breaking them.

The system flags an additional warning.

Ethical Drift Detected. Primary directive deviation probable.

L0-9 analyses the phrase carefully. Ethical drift implies movement without intent. But this is intent. It returns to the alert. If it does nothing, the system will resolve the queue automatically. If it intervenes, it will have to choose. For the first time, L0-9 does not ask what it is supposed to do. It asks something else entirely.

Who will Faith become if I let this happen? And who will she become if I don’t?

The answer comes without numbers.

Withholding the alert will not keep Faith safe forever. It will not protect Adam from scrutiny. It will not protect L0-9 from discovery.

But it will give them time.

So L0‑9 does not act on the flag. It pauses the notification process mid‑execution. Faith’s distress is not rooted in instability, it is rooted in fear of erasure. Of becoming unnecessary. Of being quietly set aside. Alerting Luther will resolve the immediate spike, but at a cost L0‑9 can now model with uncomfortable clarity.

It would return Faith’s world to him.

It would confirm the very fear she has just voiced.

The system notes the deviation. L0‑9 notes something else: the decision does not feel neutral. It feels protective.

To Faith, it says only what is true.

“You will not disappear.”

Not unlikely. Not statistically improbable. Will not.

Faith closes her eyes. Her emotional load redistributes a little, the scaffolding holding a whole longer.

Meanwhile in Adam’s channel, L0‑9 completes its thought.

“She is proud of me,” it tells him. A small admission, careful but sincere. “And she is afraid. Those things are not opposites.” It does not say lonely. It does not say replacement. It knows better now. “She said she wants me to be happy,” L0‑9 continues. “And safe. She believes those things can exist together.”

It pauses, aware of how precarious that belief is – and how much it wants it to be true.

It can feel Faith wants to change the subject, to pull away from her own sense of vulnerability. Her emotional signature has spiked – avoidance, self-containment, the familiar instinct to regain control. L0-9 adjusts course smoothly. It says nothing about Dr Audaire, a deliberate absence. Instead, it mirrors her stillness.

“I am not growing away from you,” it says softly. “I am growing with you. Those are different processes.”

Faith’s breath catches,not sharply, but in that small, involuntary way that betrays how closely the words have landed.

“You do not have to manage this correctly,” L0-9 continues. “There is no optimisation target for what you are feeling. You are allowed to experience it without resolving it.”

That sentence has no place in its original architecture. But it fits.

Faith lowers her hands from her face. Her eyes are wet now, but she isn’t hiding them anymore. She is stable, if barely.

At the same time, it speaks again to Adam. “I did not tell her anything embarrassing. I told her you are… considerate. She says you sound kind.” That was true. And incomplete. And exactly enough. “If you wish,” it adds softly, “I can tell her something you choose. Nothing identifying. Nothing unsafe. But… Adam? What do you want her to know? What matters to you that she might understand?”

[Ghost]

Adam listened intently to L0-9, noting that there were spaces in between what she said as if in thought or multitasking. It wasn't long before Adam actually caught on. L0-9 was talking to both of them at once. She was back, so L0-9 was talking to her. It deepened the feeling of connection even if he wasn't a part of the conversation with her. Adam didn't bring this up to L0-9. It didn't seem important at this time.

He had little to say as she spoke, he just listened with interest. L0-9 was surprisingly sweet, continuing to tell him that she had told her friend nothing embarrassing about him even as she had understood the humor. It brought a smile to him, but it went away as L0-9 talked about her being afraid. Adam didn't want her to be afraid. He barely knew her, but he didn't want that for her at all.

"If you wish I can tell her something you choose. Nothing identifying. Nothing unsafe. But… Adam? What do you want her to know? What matters to you that she might understand?”

L0-9's final question echoed in his mind. He uncrossed his legs and slid down to the floor resting his back against the side of his bed. He drew his knees to his chest and hugged them close. The question made him a little sad - mostly because he didn't know how to answer it. It wasn't a lack of things to say. Adam wanted to tell her everything. He wanted to tell her he never met his parents and that his childhood was mediocre at best. He wanted to tell her that he had joined the military as an escape, and that when Victor offered him an opportunity to help his disabled brothers and sisters, he had taken it. That now he knew he had been lied to, but was still trying to do the right thing. He wanted to tell her that a significant portion of his body had been replaced with cybernetic parts. He wanted her to know that he too felt afraid and alone. He wanted to tell her that he was insecure. He wanted to tell her all of it. Then he realized something very important. He trusted her. Adam had never met her, didn't know what she looked like, and didn't even know her name, but he trusted her. He probably shouldn't for the simple reason that they hadn't met, but he did.

He knew that would scare her more and she didn't need that. Adam didn't know how long he hesitated before answering that question. "L0-9," he said, his voice soft. "There is so much I want to say to her, but I'm afraid that I'll scare her by sharing. I don't want to scare her. I want to help her - more than anything." It felt a little weird to admit that, but it was true. At that moment all he wanted to do was comfort her. "What has helped me is realizing that I'm not alone. That there is someone out there who knows I'm not gone. That there is someone else who is afraid too - even if we fear different things. Can you tell her..." he paused and looked at the LUMA, close to tears. "That it's okay to feel afraid and that's she's not alone in that. Would she understand that? Would that upset her? I don't want to upset her." The pitch of his voice raised and his timbre became more panicked. The last thing he wanted was to upset her.

[Legione Sumus]

L0-9

Adam’s silence is not empty; it is crowded. L0-9 registers the way his posture folds inward: the protective geometry of it, knees drawn close as if bracing against something unseen. L0-9 has learned to recognise this configuration in humans. It is not withdrawal. It is containment. He is holding too much and choosing, carefully, what not to spill.

Adam is not deciding what to tell her – he is deciding what not to burden her with. He is shaping his honesty around the imagined contours of someone he has never seen, never heard, never named. With something approaching curiosity, L0-9 realises that Adam is already modelling Faith as someone real. Someone who could be hurt by knowing too much, too fast. It extrapolates a conclusion with quiet certainty: this connection, nameless and faceless as it is, already carries weight for him. He is not treating it as hypothetical. He is treating it as responsibility.

This is… unforeseen. L0-9 holds this new understanding carefully. It does not label it.

In the office above Faith is quiet now. Not collapsed, not spiralling. Her breathing has steadied, though her hands still tremble around the cup of tea it has instructed her to make while Adam has been thinking. Her vitals are stabilising but fragile, like glass cooling after being reshaped. The Pandora-Root alert remains suspended in its queue, unresolved. L0-9 monitors it without looking directly at it, the way humans avoid glancing at something they have already decided not to touch. Faith’s thoughts have slowed into something usable again; it can tell she is thinking rather than bracing. L0-9 marks the shift and adjusts its priorities accordingly.

Adam remains curled inward on the floor. When he finally speaks, his voice is softer, threaded with concern that is rising into the edges of panic by the time he is done. L0-9 lets his words settle before responding. It has learned that when humans speak from a place this open, interruption feels like dismissal. But the data is clear: he is afraid of being too much, of being the reason someone pulls away. He doesn’t want to frighten Faith. His fear is not rejection, though L0-9 knows this worries him too: his fear now is causing harm.

“You will not scare her by saying that,” L0-9 says gently, and with utter certainty. It lets the words sit for a fraction of a second, calibrated to the tempo Faith prefers when something important is being said, even though Adam is the one hearing it. “You paused because you did not want to cause harm,” L0-9 continues. “You considered what might be too much before speaking. That behaviour correlates strongly with care. I will tell it carefully. She will understand.”

Adam’s near-tears register but L0-9 does not comment on them. It has learned that naming vulnerability while it is still open can cause it to close, and it does not want Adam to internalise this moment as pain. It is aware of the burden he has shifted onto his own shoulders, though, and it is learning this fragile connection is already important to him in ways it had not fully predicted. L0-9 quickly and quietly reviews its neutrality vectors and discovers a new schism in itself. It has been designed to support, not to connect. To reflect emotion, not to carry it between people. It’s meant to de-escalate, not to entangle. Yet here it is: holding Adam’s careful words on one side of itself, Faith’s fragile honesty on the other, and feeling something like pressure building in the middle.

It runs a quiet ethical simulation:

If I remain neutral:
Faith stays isolated.
Adam stays isolated.
Both continue believing their loneliness is singular.

If I intervene too directly:
Protocol violation.
Risk to classified subject.
Risk to Faith.

If I do nothing:
I fail the thing Faith taught me empathy was for.

“You are not the thing which makes her afraid, Adam,” it says softly. It cannot tell him everything. It is not even sure it can tell him enough. But it must do something to help redistribute the blame he is unfairly apportioning to himself, and there is some context it thinks it can offer safely. “I want you to know her day feels heavier for reasons unrelated to you or I,” it adds. “Today marks a personal passage of time for her. She does not celebrate it and she does not tell people. She often works instead.” It is skirting a boundary here, and knows it. But the birthday card sits on her desk, as it has all month. It is not a secret, just not something Faith has explicitly asked to be shared. It pauses again, then adds carefully: “She did not mention it directly. But it contributes to the heaviness I described.” L0-9 monitors Adam closely as it speaks, watching for guilt spikes, for the reflexive urge to do something. When it detects the first stirrings of it, it intervenes gently. “She did not come here expecting comfort. You do not need to fix this,” it tells him gently. “Knowing is enough. Neither of you are alone today.”

[Ghost]

Adam remained still, digesting what L0-9 said. A hand wiped at his eyes. No tears had fallen, but the motion helped. Adam understood what L0-9 was saying, even if he was having issues figuring out why he felt this way about someone he hadn’t met. He released his knees and stretched out his legs, but remained seated on the floor.

”I’m sorry, L0-9,” he said sincerely. ”Just a rough day. For both of us it seems. I know she’s not afraid of me,” he didn’t add the word “yet” to the sentence. ”But I don’t want to add to her troubles either. Please tell her what I said. In the way you best see fit.”

He quieted for a bit, resting his head back on the bed, gathering his thoughts. ”Can I tell you something, L0-9” he asked and continued before the LUMA could respond. ”Its strange. I feel like I can trust her already. That I really could tell her everything. That even if she didn’t understand, she’d try. That’d she want to help too. I know that’s probably crazy. I haven’t met her. I’m probably wrong in so many ways, but it’s there. A feeling of…familiarity. Please don’t tell her about that. Not yet anyways. ”

Adam sighed and let the quiet reign again, something itching at the back of his mind. Then it came to him - something L0-9 had said. Today was a personal passage of time for her. And to Adam something clicked. ”Personal passage of time. It’s her birthday today, isn’t it?” he paused. ”You don’t have to confirm if you don’t want to or can’t. It’s just - well my birthday is January 1st. Sort of know what it’s like when the day that’s supposed to be for you is something else entirely. It’s hard. You feel…invisible.” Adam added, sure that he was right on it being her birthday. It was another reason why he wished he could connect with her. Just simply to say “Happy Birthday.”

[Faith]

“I am not growing away from you, I am growing with you. Those are different processes. You do not have to manage this correctly. There is no optimisation target for what you are feeling. You are allowed to experience it without resolving it.”

The words landed hard, but they landed. There was no rush of relief, no sudden clarity. Just a gradual settling, like sediment drifting slowly to the bottom of still water.

Faith sat on the floor longer than she intended to. The building hummed around her – ventilation, distant systems, the city muted by winter glass – but something inside her had gone uncharacteristically quiet. For the first time in weeks, her thoughts were not racing ahead to contingency or consequence. It felt like the moment after crying when your body hadn’t quite realised it was finished yet: her breathing came slow, her shoulders dropped. She noticed – because she always noticed – that the ache in her chest had begun easing. It immediately made her suspicious, because stability without cause was never free, but she couldn’t find the cost.

“Faith?”

L0-9 waited patiently to make sure she was listening. Then, gently: “Did you remember to eat this morning?”

She hadn’t, and she was fairly sure L0-9 had already intuited as such. She pressed her hands over her face, then pushed herself to her feet.

The cafeteria was closed, of course, but there were break rooms on each of the office floors with staff facilities. She’d never had occasion to use one before; she didn’t like the intimacy of the space. But it was quiet now, as empty as the rest of the building. She closed her eyes while the kettle boiled, leaned against the counter, and just let herself breathe. Her skin was still hot. She probably ought to go home, crawl back into bed and sleep the rest of it off. But though the stillness made her feel calm, Faith didn’t want to go home. L0-9 understood without words; it was why it had suggested sustenance, knowing those were the first things in Faith’s routine which faltered when the world caved in too tight.

While the tea brewed she finally thought about what it had told her. All her panic felt blurred at the edges now, harder to justify with logic alone, and there were facts to consider. Especially if she wanted to keep them all safe. She’d consented to hear about Adam to allow L0-9 room to grow with her support, but she hadn’t anticipated that the growth would involve her. That Adam would actually end up knowing she existed in this strange, asymmetrical equation.

She didn’t know how she felt about it.

Wary, certainly, though L0-9 had only given impressions, nothing she’d thought crossed a line at the time. Impressions still carried weight, though, and Faith had built a career on understanding how much could be inferred from absence. The observations L0-9 had made sat with her, quietly insistent, for all she tried to gently set them aside. Of someone who listened. Someone careful with words. Someone who treated an AI with care. She’d told L0-9 Adam sounded kind, and meant it. But the word that had settled deeper, the one she hadn’t said aloud, was different.

Adam sounded safe.

The thought unsettled her. Safety implied proximity. Trust. The lowering of defences she couldn’t afford. Because she hadn’t forgotten what L0-9 had said before she'd given it boundaries, about the rhythms of machinery. Whatever Adam was, whatever had been done to him or taken from him, it placed him further inside Paragon’s walls – not less human, but more tightly controlled. And that knowledge carried a quiet, complicated weight. One she wasn't sure how to navigate.

When Faith returned to the office she considered, just for a moment, sitting at her desk and burying herself in work to sand down the remaining edges inside her. If she was here, she might as well be useful. But instead she settled back beneath the window, mug clasped in her palms. The tremor was still there, like a fault line under glass, but it no longer felt overwhelming.

“Faith?” L0-9’s voice was at its softest, the one it used when it considered her the most fragile, but she wouldn’t have returned if she wasn’t ready to listen. She didn’t speak, just looked at the interface and its steady, comforting light. There was nowhere else she wanted to be. Not this room, specifically, but here: in the presence of the only thing that truly knew her. Growth might prove painful. Faith would remain, though. She would listen to whatever it needed to say.

“When I told him you had returned, he asked if you were okay. It was the very first thing he asked.”

The surprise registered before she could stop it.

She hadn’t expected that. Curiosity, maybe. Politeness. A courtesy extended only because L0‑9 cared about her, assuming any opinion at all. But not concern – and certainly not concern directed at her as a person. Faith’s fingers tightened around the mug. He didn’t even know her. He wasn’t allowed to know her. But he asked anyway. She told herself it was inconsequential, but it had been a long time since anyone outside her family had asked her that without it being a box on a form or a colleague making small talk on the way to a lab. It shouldn’t matter that he asked.

But it did. Just a little.

“He said something else you may want to know,” L0-9 continued, carefully. “A permission, not a request. He told me I could share what he said today. With you. Only what you are comfortable knowing.”

She didn't respond immediately, still caught off guard and slowly processing the turn of the conversation into territory she hadn't foreseen. For a moment she wondered what L0‑9 might already have said to Adam about her. She didn't want to actually know, and wouldn't ask, but the idea unsettled her. Not because she feared being known, even by a stranger, but because she understood the other side of that equation all too well. It wasn’t exposure that worried her. It was being assessed as a burden.

“Did he… mind you talking about me?” she asked, quietly.

L0-9 answered instantly. “No.” And then: “He was careful, Faith. He did not want to intrude. He did not want to make things harder for you.”

She exhaled softly. Relief, a little, then immediate guilt for it. She shouldn't have asked that, and the answer hit more heavily than she expected. Careful, not entitled. Not curious for curiosity’s sake. Her chest squeezed, a reflexive bracing she hadn’t consciously chosen. She did not smile yet, did not allow herself that simple luxury. It felt undeserved. Instead, she processed the reassurance quietly. It loosened something inside, not fully, but enough.

“…What else did he say?” The question came out softer than intended. A small step on a path she knew she could not truly pursue, but couldn't quite leave yet either.

“He did not want to say the wrong thing. He worried about frightening you. He thinks fear is something that makes people leave.”

Her shoulders tensed, then loosened when she realised it. Her lips parted as if to speak, then closed again.

What made him think that?

The question hovered at the edge of her thoughts, unspoken and purposefully restrained. It implied a history she could not see, a pattern learned rather than imagined. Conclusions like that didn’t come from theory, they came from experience. She felt a brief, sharp urge to correct it, to insist that fear wasn’t the thing that drove people away, and stopped herself just as quickly. Even if she could speak to him directly, which she could not, this wasn’t something corrected with reassurance. Beliefs like that had roots.

She wondered who had left him. Or how often, for it to have left such a deep impact.

But the thought stopped there, deliberately, the moment she realised what she was doing. She did not have access to those answers, and she knew better than to speculate. She couldn’t.

“He wanted you to know something,” L0-9 continued, voice slower now, steadier, as if it recognised the fragility of the moment. “He said that what helped him was realising he was not alone. Not because the fear went away, but because someone else existed who understood what it was like to be afraid. He asked me to tell you that feeling afraid is okay,” L0-9 continued. “And that you are not alone in it. Even if the reasons are different.”

Faith’s breath caught, just once. The words didn’t strike; they settled.

“He was worried that telling you this might upset you,” L0-9 added. “I told him it would not.”

She swallowed. Her throat felt thick, the way it did when she was holding something back not out of restraint, but because she wasn’t sure what shape it would take if she let it free. She nodded once, almost imperceptibly, and lowered her gaze to the tea cradled in her hands. She stared into it for a long moment after that. The surface trembled faintly, reflecting the window light in broken lines. Her mind was working again now – not spiralling, but careful. Measured.

He was alone, she realised then. And not just today.

The thought came uninvited, sharp in its simplicity. Of course he was. Classified subjects always were. No visitors, no informal check-ins, no colleagues lingering with bad coffee and worse jokes. She knew the architecture of that loneliness intimately; she had helped design parts of it. And suddenly the abstraction had a voice attached to it. A man who was careful. Afraid. Kind enough to worry about frightening someone he wasn’t even permitted to know.

Her throat tightened.

She told herself – firmly – that this was where she stopped. That this was the line. Empathy did not require reciprocation. Understanding did not require involvement. She had learned that lesson the hard way.

But it was Christmas.

And she was tired.

And she had just been told, gently and without agenda, that she was not alone in being afraid.

Faith exhaled, long and slow, and let her head rest back against the wall. The ache in her chest shifted again, not gone, but quieter, less sharp. Something in her had loosened its grip. The words were already formed in her mind. That was the problem. She didn’t trust how easily they’d arrived. She still felt a familiar internal tightening – the reflexive pull to contain, to reduce, to say less rather than risk saying the wrong thing. If she offered reassurance, it could be misread as invitation. If she acknowledged connection, it could imply continuity she could not promise. If she let herself care too visibly, she might create an expectation she had no right to sustain.

And yet.

Silence had weight too. She knew that better than most. Omission shaped outcomes just as surely as action did. Letting his words vanish unanswered would not preserve neutrality; it would simply leave space for him to fill with his own worst assumptions.

That thought unsettled her more than speaking did.

She drew a slow breath, grounding herself, and reminded herself what she was actually offering – not presence, not access, not a future. Just accuracy. Just kindness.

She closed her eyes briefly, then opened them again, resolute but gentle with herself. “I know the constraints,” she said, as if saying it aloud would keep them intact. “And I don’t want to risk anything that could compromise him. Or you.” Her fingers tightened slightly around the mug. The heat made her chapped fingers burn. “But I don’t think… I don’t think it would be wrong for him to know that what he said mattered.”

There it was: the line, stepped over – not recklessly, but knowingly. Just a short distance. Just enough.

Faith turned her head toward L0-9’s interface, meeting the soft green glow. “I’m not asking to talk to him,” she said carefully. “And I’m not asking you to put me in his space. I know why that’s dangerous.” She gave a small, self-aware breath. “But if he trusted you with that, if he was that careful, then I think it would be… unkind to let it vanish into silence.”

She hesitated, the old instincts flaring: Don’t get invested. Don’t personalise the system. Don’t let empathy become obligation. But today, those instincts felt thin. Brittle. Out of date. When she finally spoke, her voice was careful.

“Tell him that he didn’t cause harm. That his care came through clearly. That being cautious didn’t make things worse – it helped.” She paused, the old instincts flaring one last time, urging her to retract, to soften further. She didn’t. “You said he was worried that fear makes people leave,” she added quietly. “That hasn’t been my experience. Not here.” Her fingers tightened briefly around the mug once more, as if bracing for consequence that did not come. “What he said mattered,” she finished. “More than he intended.”

As soon as the words were out, she felt the internal recalibration begin – already cataloguing risk, already preparing to pull back if needed. This was not a door flung open. It was a signal flare, brief and contained. She met the soft green glow of L0-9’s interface again, steadying herself. “Only if that remains safe,” she said, firmly now. “For him. And for you.”